Colin Charles Agenda

I’ve had many accounts on Google Apps for Domains. I guess its kind of a blow that the free option is gone now, and the cheapest is now USD$50/year. One thing Google recently killed in their winter cleaning of 2012 was Google Sync.

Now when you setup a new device, say an iPhone, you will have to “fetch” Mail (push email has stopped working). If you want push email, you will have to use the GMail app.

Calendars seem to sync just fine.

Contacts need you to use CardDAV. Google has useful instructions.

How easy was it to ditch a BlackBerry? Dead easy. Setup email, allow it to sync calendar, allow it to sync contacts and the new phone “just works”.

I did for sometime think of using Rackspace hosted webmail, which is USD$2/user/month, with $1/user/month for push, but wasn’t really certain that paying them $3/month/user made sense when Google was really only $4.17 (you get all the other stuff with google apps too).

In the future I’m guessing I will be paying Google for services. But for today, I live to see another (free) day.

The Chromebooks have arrived in Malaysia: The World’s First Samsung 4G Chromebook. They come with WiFi and a WiMaX chip so you connect to YES4G (up to 20Mbps speed on this network). They retail for RM1,299 (USD$419) or RM988 (USD$318) with a 24-month contract that costs RM88 with 3.5GB of data transfer (exceed the quota and you get free data usage at a reduced speed).

In the USA, the Samsung Chromebook with 3G retails for USD$329 while the Samsung Chromebook WiFi retails for USD$249.

I’m not sure why YTL has jacked up the price so much. There is no way that a WiMaX chip costs so much more compared to the 3G chip. There is already a $80 premium in the USA to get 3G (something you can use on any network – Maxis, DiGi, Celcom, etc.). Why does the WiMaX chip cost $90 more than the 3G model (total for the privilege of WiMaX: USD$170 – RM527!). Keep in mind that this extra means you only are mobile where the YES4G network is available (which is not everywhere, compared to the 3G networks in Malaysia).

Next up: LTE is here. Speeds exceed 20Mbps easily. Maxis and Celcom are already providing devices, including portable WiFi hotspots (MiFi devices). You can also tether your devices easily.

To add: there is likely a new Samsung Chrombook in the works. If it can keep the same price point and get a lot more power, it could be very interesting. The current Chromebook went on sale at Amazon in October 2012 (so some 7+ months ago). A refresh is definitely around the corner, though that shouldn’t stop anyone from buying one (it certainly won’t stop me).

My verdict? Buy a Chromebook with WiFi only. WiFi is everywhere these days. I don’t think the premium for connecting to the YES network makes sense. Real problem? These devices aren’t sold outright in Malaysia in any official capacity which I see as a problem.

Update: With 100GB free “cloud storage”, and only 16GB local storage, one would presume that you would use the cloud a lot for things. Music and videos will have to be streamed. Can you live with 3.5GB of data transfer (this is uploads and downloads)? Will you ever really get to use your Google Drive to its potential?

On my Nexus 7 today, I got this message from the FT app: FT could not be opened because it is not connected to the Internet. This is an odd error message.

The best way to fix this? Clear the cache in Android (just for the application). Or you can Force Stop the application afterwards and it should restart just fine.

Why? There are issues with HTML5 app cache. Some resources: Debugging HTML5 Offline Application Cache, Fixing app cache from the FT themselves, and some sensible comments at Stack Overflow.

I happened to be awake last night so I caught the announcement via livestream for Facebook Home. I’m glad its just a system launcher. There are many (I myself on my phone use Nova Launcher), but from the demo, this is beautifully designed with a new take on the interface. The demo showed it being smoother than butter ;)

Chat heads look interesting. Some may claim it being bothersome or unintuitive, but most iOS users have this already turned on via accessibility settings assistive touch since the home button breaks far too easily. Why a little white dot when you can now make it do things for you?

I was impressed with the amount of partners on launch day. Buy-in from manufacturers like HTC, Samsung, Sony, Huawei, Lenovo, ZTE, Alcatel. Chipmaker like Qualcomm. Telcos like AT&T, Orange, EE. I can only expect this to grow of course. Gives great competition in the mobile landscape for 2013.

You see, FirefoxOS has a huge amount of partners & buy-in. I continue to be surprised that Ubuntu doesn’t have a similar page.

Am I switching from iOS as my main phone? Unlikely. I’m almost certain that many at Facebook, including Zuckerberg runs on IOS. But I will be playing with this on my secondary device (the Galaxy S3). I’m a little surprised that the April 12 launch isn’t available for the Nexus set of phones… and in Asia, the Galaxy Note form factor is popular, where did that go?

HTC First will be the first device to come with the Facebook Home system launcher as a default. I’m not sure how this is different to them applying skins and admitting that Facebook does it better. This isn’t the first time they’re playing around with a Facebook phone though.

Interesting times as Facebook has confirmed that their strategy is clearly mobile first. The fact that they built this on top of Android can’t really impress Google very much ;)

Others have also covered this well, i.e a strategy for Facebook, how this isn’t good for privacy.

I tried running Inkscape and it wouldn’t start. It seems that OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) doesn’t ship X11 any longer, and you have to use XQuartz.

You’re then forced to log out & log back in. Once that is complete, Inkscape and others work again. This problem doesn’t exist with The GIMP any longer as that is now native. Here’s hoping Inkscape moves with the times too.

I shared this from The Economist quite some time back: Counting raindrops. Here is an example of folk using mobile phone networks themselves for weather forecasting. 

Today I stumbled upon Cumulonimbus. They have an Android application called pressureNET, which makes use of the barometer in some Android phones. This is user-contributed atmospheric pressure readings, embedded on a Google map. It is available to view at http://pressurenet.cumulonimbus.ca/.

It seems many devices have a barometer as well. Samsung leads the pack with the Galaxy S3, S4, Note, Note II, Galaxy Nexus. It also comes with the Nexus 4 & Nexus 10.